DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see the notice of appeal, filed 7/1/26, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-20 under the final rejection dated 4/21/26 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of newly discovered art.
Applicant's request for reconsideration of the finality of the rejection of the last Office action is persuasive and, therefore, the finality of that action is withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 4, 10, 11, 14, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lloyd (11,356,909) in view of Sood (12,063,708).
For claims 1, 11, 20, Lloyd teaches a method and system (abstract, background, summary and claims) comprising:
obtaining, by a default (col. 10, lines 5-20) cellular network service provider (col. 14, lines 5-30; database of service providers) from a roaming cellular network service provider (col. 10, lines 20-45; col. 19, lines 15-25), a list of identifiers (col. 35, line 30 – col. 36, line 35);
for each respective server, in a list of respective servers (col. 37, lines 15-35) that the default cellular network service provider assigned to respective geographic hubs (col. 13, line 60 – col. 14, line 15), pinging (col. 37, line 35 – col. 38, line 10) through an on-demand cloud computing platform (col. 12, lines 15-30) each usable Internet Protocol address indicated by each respective identifier in the list of identifiers (col. 38, lines 10-60); and
discovering, by the default cellular network service provider, in response to the pinging, which Internet Protocol addresses indicated a healthy remote packet data node of the roaming cellular network service provider (col. 10, lines 45-55; health = availability).
Lloyd does not expressly disclose that the default network is a home network talking to a roaming network, nor the list of identifiers indicating respective ranges of Internet Protocol addresses that are targets for remote packet data nodes of the roaming cellular network service provider. Sood teaches a method and system (abstract) in the relevant art (background, summary and claims) that includes that the default network is a home network (col. 2, line 55 – col. 3, line 5; HHS) talking to a roaming network (col. 3, lines 5-65; trying to talk to different non-local HHS), nor the list of identifiers (col. 6, lines 45-65) indicating respective ranges of Internet Protocol addresses that are targets for remote packet data nodes of the roaming cellular network service provider (col. 9, lines 15-40). At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill in the art would have added Sood in order to improve the ability to connect identifier and server lists (col. 1, lines 25-60).
For claims 4, 14, Sood teaches a set of usable Internet Protocol addresses indicated by each respective identifier in the list of identifiers comprises a continuous range of Internet Protocol addresses (col. 10, lines 25-50).
For claim 10, Lloyd teaches performing a differential operation between the list of identifiers and a second list of identifiers obtained at a subsequent point in time to ascertain which Internet Protocol addresses have been inserted into the second list of identifiers (col. 19, lines 40-60).
Claim(s) 2, 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lloyd and Sood as applied to claims 1, 11 above, and further in view of Xu et al. (9,788,188).
For claims 2, 12, Lloyd and Sood do not expressly disclose that the list of identifiers comprises a list of subnet definitions. Xu teaches a method and system (abstract) in the relevant art (background, summary and claims) that includes this limitation (col. 5, lines 35-60). At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill in the art would have added Xu in order to provide improvements to handling roaming and geographic hubs (col. 1, lines 25-50).
Claim(s) 3, 7, 13, 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lloyd and Sood as applied to claims 1, 11 above, and further in view of Batsakis et al. (11,829,415).
For claims 3, 13, Lloyd and Sood do not expressly disclose that each respective identifier in the list of identifiers indicates a first set of bits assigned to a host and a remaining second set of bits assigned to a network definition. Batsakis teaches a method and system (abstract) in the relevant art (background, summary and claims) that includes that each respective identifier in the list of identifiers (col. 13, line 60 – col. 14, line 5) indicates a first set of bits assigned to a host (col. 7, lines 15-50) and a remaining second set of bits (col. 25, lines 45-65) assigned to a network definition (col. 19, lines 25-45).
For claims 7, 17, Batsakis teaches sorting the list of identifiers (col. 53, lines 10-25) by the remaining second set of bits assigned to the network definition (col. 31, lines 25-45).
Claim(s) 8, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lloyd and Sood as applied to claims 1, 11 above, and further in view of Kreger Stickles et al. (11,736,558).
For claims 8, 18, Lloyd and Sood do not expressly disclose the limitations. Stickles teaches a method and system (abstract) in the relevant art (background, summary and claims) that includes pinging through the on-demand cloud computing platform comprises:
obtaining access to the on-demand cloud computing platform (col. 5, line 40 – col. 6, line 20); and
registering at least one virtual machine in the on-demand cloud computing platform (col. 6, line 40 – 60).
At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill in the art would have added Stickles in order to provide improvements to secure communications among different networks (col. 1, lines 30-45).
For claims 9, 19, Stickles teaches that pinging through the on-demand cloud computing platform comprises:
installing a program for pinging each usable Internet Protocol address indicated by each respective identifier in the list of identifiers (col. 14, lines 5-25); and
executing the program through the at least one virtual machine (col. 14, lines 25-50).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 6, 15, 16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the combination of limitations for claim 5 is considered, upon further search and consideration, to be novel and non-obvious. Claim 6 is also a formula that appears to be unused in any of the items of discovered prior art.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MELVIN H POLLACK whose telephone number is (571)272-3887. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Oscar Louie can be reached at (571)270-1684. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MELVIN H POLLACK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2445
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